Make Them Cry

by Smith Henderson

  In the skidding din of the bikes and pickups behind them, she saw moving shadows, two, then three, then more in black fatigues and helmets and ballistics masks, parting like matadors for the second riderless motorcycle to fly past. Red laser sights hitting the windshield as they jogged forward, one of their number pausing to execute the first rider, still motionless on the ground. They converged around the car.

  “Duck!” the phone shouted from the floor.

  There was so much noise and light, she did not need to be told.

  In the sustained gunfire she heard bootsteps on the hood. Then a suction and a whoosh and an explosion, the interior of the car inundated with light. She could see Gustavo’s face, his wide eyes, his gritting teeth, the veins on his temple and neck. And then new darkness, the heavy quiet that is having gone deaf. In the ensuing moments a steady clattering. Like fingernails on a Formica table. Like falling poker chips. This is more gunfire. A person went steadily past the driver’s-side window, casings casting dark butterfly shadows in the light flash of the barrel. The fight was moving behind the car.

  Within her it was quiet right then. It was still. She wasn’t running anymore.

  Gustavo opened her door. She looked behind her, expecting him to be on the floor where she left him, but his door was open and he was saying “Ten, remember?” and her ears rang, flooded with more percussive pops. He pulled her out and they were running along a wall, they were stepping over something—was that an RPG launcher?—and then they were stopped. She stepped in place, tingling all over.

  Gustavo was looking within an empty building behind them, a darkened auto shop from the smell of it. More men in black assault gear, firing into the alley. They peeked through a broken window. The Toyota was blackened. A burst from one of the large-calibers. The Ford bouncing up, the last of the roof lights going out.

  A full silence.

  She could hear Carver’s voice—his deep rapid cadence, almost joyful—and three men talking about thirty feet away. She couldn’t make out what they were saying. She could hear their voices, though. She didn’t understand why she didn’t understand. Her head felt heavy, like someone had dumped sand into her brainpan and then watered it down. Her heart raced yet.

  “No es inglés o español,” Gustavo said.

  She looked at him.

  “They not Americans,” he said.

  “Or Mexicans?”

  “What I said. That ain’t no Spanish.” He shook his head. “No lo sé.”

  He stood away from the wall and walked back out to the car.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded. She looked into the building, where Carver and these men still conferred, then went after Gustavo. The alley was lit by the fire of the burning Toyota, and nothing else. And then the lights mounted on their weapons flickered on, and she could see the dark figures, almost ghosts, moving along the alley walls. The lights aimed at the ground. The men crouching. Gathering.

  “Well done,” Carver said, sweeping by them to the Hyundai. He flipped on his own gun light and inspected the back of the vehicle. Satisfied, he opened the back door and began to undress, pitching his helmet, face mask, goggles, and gloves in the back seat. He slammed the back door shut and stood over the opened front door.

  “They didn’t even get off a fucking round. This car, minus whatever you did to the chassis, should be good to go.”

  The men were still at their task in the alley.

  “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “The fellas? Gathering up casings. We like to keep it neat.”

  She watched them working their way up the alley. Pinching the ground and putting the casings into sacks on their belts like sharecroppers, like a new kind of migrant farmer. It felt like a dream.

  “Keys?” Carver asked from behind the driver’s-side door.

  “What?”

  “The keys,” he said.

  “In the ignition,” she said, looking around. The smoke and dust. The silence.

  “Guys, let’s go.”

  They got in the immaculate sedan and left the scene.

  Chapter Eighteen

  La Paloma

  Tomás had been sitting in the doorway of the Iglesia Pentecostal Unida a la Paloma for the better part of the day, drinking drip coffee the church secretary had made before she and the preacher left him there alone. They hurried away, neither one looking back as they departed, lest they turn to pillars of salt. An unmistakable menace about him.

  The church had a smooth concrete facade, sky blue with bright gold trim. A huge steeple, three stories, with windows, rooms, probably they even did church shit up there, looking out over the earth like Christian owls. And now this incongruous man had propped open the door of the church and sat so he could see what little there was to see through the wrought iron spike fencing that surrounded the property and yet remain in range of the fan the secretary set up for him.

  He ran a hand over his head, sniffed the odors of the ambush still clinging to his hair. Burnt rubber and paint, gasoline and rocket exhaust. Smoking flesh. Maybe even some tattoo ink from those dead prison Zetas whose bodies lay a few hundred meters away, on the other side of the cinder-block residences and shops and empty lots. He wiped his hand on his pant leg. What a disaster. The sun was hot and high, making the smell worse probably. He needed a shower.

  Across the street a crowd of bystanders edged the yellow tape and barricades to observe Tampico’s entire law enforcement community, crime-scene techs in khaki, morgue workers in white. They’d never seen a spectacle like this, everyone enthralled—men in pressed shirts, orange-vested municipal workers, women with umbrellas against the sun. Straw-hatted fruit peddlers at their carts. Everyone just edging for a glimpse of blood and death. And they couldn’t see shit. Fucking stupid, fucking weird. Crowds always gather for violence and wreckage. For things like this, perpetrated by men like him. As if all this bearing witness might be a kind of inoculation against what might come for them someday.

  Which it wasn’t. Obviously. There was no protecting yourself against the future. He wanted to go tell them that, be a wise man talking some wise shit, but he knew they wouldn’t listen. Plus it was a stupid thing to talk about at all. Nobody’d listen to a wise man these days. They wouldn’t know what to do with one.

  Tomás took a phone from his shirt pocket and texted the boy.

  Talk to me. Tell me what you see

  Behind the church he’d found a kid and his brother kicking around a half-deflated fútbol. He’d palmed the older boy several large bills, sent them to a store for burners. Sent one up in the church steeple, another one on the ground. Told them to observe and report to him.

  cops and army still here, the boy wrote back.

  The kid was quick. Tomás was impressed.

  How many?

  Lots of them 20 maybe? nobody leaving more keep showing up too

  Be fast when things change, Tomás texted back. You need to tell me instantly.

  okay

  When they look like they’re ready. You hit me RIGHT THEN.

  Ready for what.

  To do something new.

  yes sir

  Keep out of sight, both of you.

  okay good we will

  Tomás put the phone back in his pocket. He could use more kids like those two. More useful than those pinche prison Zetas. Such a far cry from the soldiers they’d been trained to be. But those dudes were doomed. The ambush was that perfect.

  He’d been a block behind. The pickups followed the motorcycles into the alley. His gut told him to hang back. The way the Hyundai had somehow found a slot in the palms on the median and whipped around was like another driver had taken the wheel, and had his men on the hook. Right then Tomás should’ve radioed them to hang back.

  But they wouldn’t have listened, he knew that. The fools had been high since Topo Chico, galloping and carnivorous, so game they didn’t see the danger of a blind alley. So they died. Astonished and probably crying like curs bellying the gro
und and they’d asked for it. The blood they ultimately sought was of course their own.

  Their stupid bloodlust saved him, though. They’d gotten ahead and given Tomás a chance to see the red laser sights cutting through the airborne dust. He’d killed the engine and headlights and was gliding to a stop when the RPG ripped into them. Then the guns opened up, and he cranked the ignition so hard he bent the key. He’d backed the fuck out of there, expecting any second for the windshield to spiderweb with sniper fire.

  What those badasses had pulled off was amazing, and apparently without a casualty. The concentrated violence of it all. He was truly in awe. Troubled only by the mystery of it. He didn’t feel a lust for vengeance, not at all. He just wanted to know, his ignorance like a wound he couldn’t stop worrying, fussing, and touching. They’d set a trap, destroyed some dozen psychopaths, and then vanished. No trail, no way to even start smelling one out. He was stuck here in Tampico. Knowing nobody, no contacts, no knowledge of this territory, nothing to tell El Rabioso—

  He pulled out his phone, texted the kid again.

  You see that earlier? The battle?

  it woke us up. didn’t see anything.

  Okay. You talk to anybody saw anything?

  people said there was motorcycles. then just the dead men and some cars sped away

  what kind of cars?

  Don’t know.

  I’m wondering what the people looked like who attacked

  dunno i only heard them

  Alright. It’s okay. You’re doing good. Stay out of sight.

  yes sir.

  But keep your eyes open for me.

  can I ask something, sir?

  Go ahead.

  are you a narco, sir?

  Why do you ask?

  because you have money for us and are concerned with these men.

  does that make me a narco?

  Are you police.

  I’m not a narco or police, Tomás wrote. I’m a knight.

  He looked at the phone, the kid’s nonresponse, and wondered himself what he meant. Wondered was this for the kid or the kid in himself who still read about wizards and swords even as he tussled with narcos and an American DEA agent. He wished he had that fucking book. Even to be in Fuerzas Especiales, on the other side again. Simple. Working with the federales, probably the DEA—

  Of course.

  The DEA woman.

  Tomás realized with sudden galling clarity that he’d surely underestimated her. She seemed so afraid when Tomás showed up, but when El Capataz told her where the tunnel was, she knew exactly what to do. The bitch was the one driving the car, after all. Had led them right into an ambush. Some kind of killer-killers. Realms in realms. Tunnels everywhere. And now the nephew and the DEA woman were long gone.

  Hey, he wrote to the kid, do you see any gringos?

  The badasses were probably Americans. SEALs, Delta, CIA.

  I don’t think so, the kid wrote back.

  like American uniforms maybe?

  I will ask joselito

  He had to find them. Not for the tunnel. He didn’t give a fuck about the tunnel. That was a problem for El Rabioso and El Esquimal. The ache, the churn in his gut, was embarrassment. This DEA woman had lured his men right into the crosshairs of a death squad. He should’ve gotten her name. He’d been outdone.

  joselito says he sees police, the kid wrote, and ambulance workers, soldiers, but not any gringos he can tell.

  Alright.

  we don’t know the other stuff. whether american or officers we don’t know stuff like that

  I know, it’s okay. you see any military walking around?

  Maybe the ambush was just Mexican military. Some new Special Forces unit.

  don’t know, the kid wrote back, everyone is in masks

  I know. But maybe some asshole with ornaments on his shoulders or a fucking beret or something.

  not that I see

  okay. keep watching

  He needed to find her. He needed to learn what kind of world he’d entered. The new rules.

  Fuck, it was so hot, even with the fan. How did these tampiqueñas live like this? Tomás stood up, let himself inside. He walked up some steps and then down to the church’s baptismal pool. This was some kind of American Christianity, where they dunked adults in the water. He saw churches like this from his time in Texas. Big as arenas, lots full of pickups. They spoke in tongues, they preached wealth, wasn’t no peon Catholic church, they had a big-dick American God.

  Yeah, it was Americans who shot the Zetas up. He was sure of it.

  He undressed and folded his clothes onto a pew and got in the perfect water. He dunked himself and slicked his hair back and sprayed water from his mouth and went under again and started rubbing his skin, washing himself. He let his eyes float on the surface like a crocodile.

  Did this mean he was saved now? As in salvation, go-to-heaven, all that? That’s what these weird Christians believed, right? You go under, you’re born anew, no? Maybe somewhat saved, a percentage, half- or quarter-saved? Did his soul get at least some little bit of profit from this church water?

  Probably not. Even Tomás wouldn’t let a guy like himself in a place with all those good people. Wouldn’t be fair. Tomás had never read the Bible, never listened to homilies, never paid attention, but he knew that Christianity had some pretty strict rules. A ticket to paradise cost more than a bath. Maybe you got less time in purgatory. Probably it was something like that. A thousand years off his infinite sentence or some shit.

  But these church folk didn’t believe in purgatory. They baptized anybody, adults, old men, not just babies. They didn’t believe in a holding-cell-place after death, that complicated Catholic shit like his mom and the priest taught. With these people, you were just cleansed or not. Pretty good loophole, that. Sin up until the last breath, just get baptized at the end.

  The water felt so good. He gazed at a big carving on the wall of a dove flying through fire. No stained glass, no jewels, no big gold crosses for him to guess how much they were worth, no sad-ass Jesus pictures where he’s all skinny and fucked up, no saints, not even the Virgin. Just this dove. Maybe this wasn’t no Christian church at all. Birds carried messages from wizards. Watched over travelers and seekers. Giant ones like this dove here let select badasses hitch rides. Funny to think of this as some kind of bird-god joint. Him in a giant birdbath.

  Tomás dunked his head once more, slicked his hair back, and walked up the stairs out of the pool and down again to the floor. He rubbed his feet dry on the cheap carpet, sat naked for a while thinking he’d probably be killed soon. Just had that coming-to-the-end feeling. Couldn’t place it exactly. Like the shot-up Zetas were an alarm. Time was up.

  He put on his socks and then his pants and shoes. He went outside, propped the door again with the chair. He sat there shirtless in the sun and texted the boy.

  hey

  yeah, the kid wrote back.

  Still nothing?

  nothing but I am watching close

  Alright, Tomás wrote, listen up.

  yes?

  I am a narco, okay. I just want you to know that.

  are you famous?

  No, nobody knows me. But maybe you heard of El Esquimal?

  no I don’t know maybe then why’s he called that?

  I don’t know anymore

  Is he your boss

  He’s the big boss. He keeps a low profile. I understand you don’t know him. I answer to El Rabioso.

  Who is he?

  The plaza boss.

  is that what they call the one who oversees knights?

  Tomás smiled. I suppose so. Then, i’m telling you this so you know to watch out.

  For what?

  More of like what happened last night.

  Tomás moved his chair out of the sun. He held a hand above his eyes, squinted. The sun hammered down on the crowd across the highway. Afternoon just starting, and it still hadn’t thinned out at all. What was the point of the crowd? O
r of even warning the kid? Some false hope that you could manage the chaos. Same as wondering who exactly killed his men. Who the DEA woman was. He didn’t know shit, maybe never would. So don’t fucking worry about it.

  He closed his eyes, tried to enjoy the air on his wet skin.

  A text came in.

  an ambulance, the kid wrote.

  somebody’s alive? Tomás wrote back. Some luck maybe. Maybe his Zetas got a shot off.

  I think so

  You see who?

  some hurt dude

  Is he in armor, maybe a uniform?

  not sure let me check

  If one of the ambushers was wounded and still alive, then Tomás could find out who they were, maybe even catch up to his quarry. Could be a good thing. Maybe things could be understood after all.

  Or maybe a new problem: a prison Zeta. The cops would interrogate him, and he could very well give everything up. Topo Chico. What the CDG had loosed him to do.

  That would be very bad. Tomás was the one here on scene, boots on the ground, the one giving orders to children now. When it ends all fucked up, he’s the one gets zeroed. He wasn’t under the zero yet, but from where he sat he could definitely see that motherfucker.

  His phone buzzed.

  i can’t tell what he’s wearing

  okay thank you, Tomás texted back.

  Things could maybe still be salvaged. There were possibilities. If the guy was an American, things could be learned. If he was a half-dead Zeta with prison tattoos and a long story, well, Tomás could handle that as well.

  He stood. For a last moment he felt the fan blow against his skin. Then he pushed the chair inside, let the church door fall shut behind him, and put on his shirt.

  On the edge of the yellow tape a couple of expressionless uniformed police made sure no one got through. Tomás still couldn’t see much. The wreckage from the ambush—bodies, bikes, cars—was too far away. He had a view of the morgue van, although they hadn’t started loading the dead into it yet. He could see the front of the ambulance pointed toward the street. He yearned to see what was going on with the wounded man.

  He pulled out his phone, texted the boy in the steeple.